During summer my family moves from New York City to Illinois. Summer camp is more affordable there.

• My family of four lives in Queens, NY, where day camps are expensive. 
• I'm an educator, so get most of the summer off and plan activities for my kids. 
• We are moving with family to Illinois so my kids can attend summer camp there. 

I've always wanted my kids to experience the joy of summer camp — hiking, singing, and weaving colorful friendship bracelets. But even day camp is exorbitant in New York, where I live. Thankfully, I'm an educator who doesn't work full-time during the summer, so we usually pursue an economical option, the DIY "Mama Camp."

My daughters — now 11 and 5 — make our own schedules and go to museums, libraries, and parks, sprinkler-hopping across the neighborhood. "Let's make our own camp T-shirts, just for the three of us!" my daughter once suggested after observing that kids in "real" summer camp all wear matching shirts.

My kids never complained about Mama Camp — but I still wanted them to see what camp was like with other kids. Last summer, I took on some extra freelance work and registered my kids for part-time and drop-in camps near our home in Queens. The camps were mostly indoors, with excursions to playgrounds — and the same sprinklers they'd splashed in with me — and an occasional field trip that cost $25 extra per day. In total, my kids attended 11 days of camp over the 70 days of the summer. They didn't enjoy it much, and the bill came out to over $2,000.

I'm moving my family to Illinois for the summer

"So what should I do this year?" I asked my sister, who lives in a small town in rural Illinois, 90 minutes from Chicago, with her husband and 7-year-old daughter. "You have all the great options."

I didn't want to take my chances on winning a place in a free public school camp through a lottery system, especially since it would mean taking a spot away from a working parent with a full-time schedule with more urgent childcare needs than mine.

"What's your kiddo doing this year?" I asked my sister.

My niece was sampling a wide variety of Parks Department camps — from filmmaking to STEAM to gymnastics to nature exploration, trying something new each week. In New York, such special-interest camps carry the price tag of a semester of college and require an hour of subway commuting for those of us who don't live in midtown Manhattan. But in Illinois, a five to minute drive could take you to a butterfly farm program, a graphic novel workshop, a cabaret camp — you name it.

For half-day programs in my sister's town, the rates are $100 a week, and non-residents pay $130. Anyone living outside town, whether 10 minutes away or halfway across the country, pays the slightly elevated fee. For a full-day program, the price increases to about $200 (residents) or $230 (nonresidents) a week.

I had to keep asking my sister to repeat the prices. "Are you sure it isn't $130 per day?"

"Per week."

There's nothing in New York available for that amount of money. I have paid $60 per hour for my kids to make slime or throw quarters into arcade machines, just to escape our tiny apartment on a rainy afternoon. $130 does not get you anywhere in New York.

"Maybe we should move in with you so we could afford camp!" I joked.

My sister was serious. "Why not? We have space for you to move in!"

Even with the cost of airfare, we are saving money

Two weeks should be enough of an experiment with "real" camp. For two weeks, I'll have some structure to my kids' days so I can catch up on rest (after a long school year), work 10 hours per week as an online graduate school instructor, and read and write for pleasure. If had the financial need to work full-time remotely all summer, moving in with my sister for two full months might be a smart option. I'm surprised I don't hear about more families combining households to juggle childcare, a trend I heard about during the pandemic.

My sister kindly walked me through the process of applying to her camp for two weeks as a non-resident. Her expertise was valuable since the camp brochure was over 30 pages long, and I depended on her insider knowledge of the area and the pros and cons of each program.

Even with the cost of airfare, we will save money. I would have wanted to visit my sister anyway, but now I'm combining the family trip with camp. This may be the last chance for my older daughter to try camp; she's almost 12. She's excited about honing her artistic skills in a comic book class. My younger daughter is doing camp at the butterfly farm, which is perfect since she's our social butterfly. This year, "Mama Camp" will allow some time for Mama to play too.